Auto Suggestions are available once you type at least 3 letters. Use up arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+up arrow) and down arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+down arrow) to review and enter to select.

Overview

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An eye-opening, no-holds-barred memoir about life in the Church of Scientology, now with a new afterword by the author—the outspoken actress and star of the A&E docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath

Leah Remini has never been the type to hold her tongue. That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this tough-talking girl from Brooklyn to forge an enduring and successful career in Hollywood. But being a troublemaker has come at a cost.

That was never more evident than in 2013, when Remini loudly and publicly broke with the Church of Scientology. Now, in this frank, funny, poignant memoir, the former King of Queens star opens up about that experience for the first time, revealing the in-depth details of her painful split with the church and its controversial practices.

Indoctrinated into the church as a child while living with her mother and sister in New York, Remini eventually moved to Los Angeles, where her dreams of becoming an actress and advancing Scientology’s causes grew increasingly intertwined. As an adult, she found the success she’d worked so hard for, and with it a prominent place in the hierarchy of celebrity Scientologists alongside people such as Tom Cruise, Scientology’s most high-profile adherent. Remini spent time directly with Cruise and was included among the guests at his 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes.

But when she began to raise questions about some of the church’s actions, she found herself a target. In the end, she was declared by the church to be a threat to their organization and therefore a “Suppressive Person,” and as a result, all of her fellow parishioners—including members of her own family—were told to disconnect from her. Forever.

Bold, brash, and bravely confessional, Troublemaker chronicles Leah Remini’s remarkable journey toward emotional and spiritual freedom, both for herself and for her family. This is a memoir designed to reveal the hard-won truths of a life lived honestly—from an author unafraid of the consequences.

Product Details

About the Author

Leah Remini is an actor, producer, and writer. A fixture on television since the age of eighteen, Remini is best known for her beloved role of Carrie on the nine-season hit The King of Queens. Remini went on to produce and star in one of the earliest and most successful comedic web series, In the Motherhood, and appeared in the movie Old School alongside Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn. In 2010, Remini helped launch and co-hosted the first season of the CBS daytime hit show The Talk, and in 2013 she was seen on the dance floor in Dancing with the Stars. She currently co-stars in the TV Land comedy The Exes and TLC’s reality show Leah Remini: It’s All Relative, which she also created and executive produces. Remini finds great joy in her philanthropic work with numerous and diverse military, women’s, and children’s charities. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

Read an Excerpt

AS FAR BACK AS I can remember, I was always performing and trying to make people laugh. I grew up on I Love Lucy, Welcome Back, Kotter, Happy Days, Gilligan’s Island, Three’s Company, Sanford and Son, All in the Family, Good Times…You get the idea. Watching all of these shows always made me feel something. I knew early on that I wanted to make people feel this same way.

As a kid I was always putting on shows—re-creating skits from The Carol Burnett Show and singing Donny and Marie songs in the living room. My older sister, Nicole, reluctantly played my sidekick; although she never had any enthusiasm for these skits and performances, she obliged. I also took to giving her notes like “Nic, Donny loves Marie, so when we do ‘I’m a Little Bit Country,’ you gotta look at me like he looks at Marie, with a smile and maybe a wink.” She would respond with “Or how about I just punch you in the face?” Okay, we all make choices as performers.

WHEN I WAS NINE YEARS old, I heard that the Broadway musical Annie was holding open auditions for the lead role. I didn’t let the fact that I had no singing talent or acting experience deter me. My mom supported me, believing that I would one day be an actress, and she got a playwright friend to teach me the song “Tomorrow” and take me to the group audition. Her boyfriend at the time photographed me for my “headshots,” in which I wore my very best Little House on the Prairie shirt. When I got the pictures back, I was seriously floored at how beautiful I looked. Clearly, the Annie people would see this little gem from Brooklyn and want to hire me on the spot—but I was still willing to sing for them if need be.

The audition was a cattle call, which meant everyone was assigned a number and sat in the audience section of a huge theater until that number was called. The image running through my mind was that of a front-page headline in the New York Post: “Brooklyn Girl with No Experience Nabs Annie Role.” Whatever I lacked in terms of dancing or singing, someone could teach me. I had the chutzpah to land the part. And as for my long, straight brown hair—well, that’s what wigs were for. And with that, I was off to hand the director my picture.

But as soon as my name was called and I got onstage, facing the director and all those people sitting in the darkened theater, I went blind with panic.

The pianist hit a key and I started to sing immediately. “The—”

“No. That’s for the key,” the director interrupted.

“Okay. Well, maybe you should tell people…Do you want me to start again?” I said.

“That’s okay. Go home to Mommy,” the director said as he looked down at his clipboard.

I burst into tears before I had even gotten off the stage. I was crying the way kids do when they can’t catch their breath. My mom’s friend, the one who taught me the song, who had brought me to the audition, took me for a slice of pizza and an Italian ice, over which we discussed how that director would regret not hiring me and how Annie would bomb without me. The Broadway show Annie would suffer and suffer big without me in it!

WHEN I WASN’T ACTING OUT my favorite TV shows, Nicole and I could be found hanging out on Eighty-sixth Street, near Bay Parkway, where loud music thumped from the cars to get girls’ attention, even though the guys in their gold chains, Old Spice, and gelled hair acted like they were too cool to care. I aspired to be one of those girls whose attention the guys sought—tight Jordache and Sergio Valente jeans with a brush jammed in the back pocket, lots of makeup and Aqua Net, and even more attitude. All they ever seemed to do was hang out on the corner—like a hooker, but not—and I wanted in. I vowed that when I was older—maybe twelve or thirteen—I would be just like them.

This was Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, circa 1980. We talked tough, but ultimately it was a protective neighborhood for those who belonged. When a car alarm went off, there would be five Joeys and Frankies out on the street with bats within two minutes. There was no such thing as minding your own business. If a boyfriend was fighting with his girlfriend, another guy would start yelling at him: “Yo, don’t fuckin’ talk to a girl like that.” ’Nuff said.

When we were kids, our neighborhood—basically consisting of a bakery, a pizzeria, a bagel store, a Baskin-Robbins, a Chock full o’Nuts, a Te-Amo, and an Optima—was our whole universe.

While Manhattan, just a quick train ride away, was foreign to Nicole and me, places like Long Island and New Jersey were another planet. When our mom took us to the Poconos for vacation (a rarity), we met a group of girls who asked us if we wanted to help “collect things for a collage.” First we had to clear up what a collage was, because my sister and I didn’t speak French. When it rained, these kids stayed inside and played Atari, unlike us Brooklyn kids, who were used to hanging out in front of the candy store come rain, sleet, or mini-hurricane.

Our regular neighborhood haunt was the local Te-Amo convenience store, near the D train. We could also be found at other people’s houses, where it seemed there were always better toys and better food than at ours. I spent a lot of time at my friend’s place above our apartment on Bay Parkway. She had a Barbie Dreamhouse, which back then, to little girls, was pretty much the equivalent of crack. That’s where I was playing one day when my mom called Nicole and me down to share some news.

“I’ve got to tell you girls something,” Mom said. “Your dad and I are separating. I don’t want you to be upset. I’m okay, and we’re going to be okay.”

I sat there basically without expression and looked at my sister, wondering if I should try to fake being more upset.

George, my dad, was the classic paesan of Sicilian origin who used hairspray on his remaining three hairs, wore a rope chain and pinky ring, got his nails done, and kept his car—a Cadillac, of course—perfectly clean and smelling good with one of those scented trees that hang from the rearview mirror. And I was scared shitless of the man.

He never hit me. (Nicole, on the other hand, would get smacked. “You are older. You should know better,” he used to say to my sister, as if she were going to college already, though she was just a year older than me.) What terrified me was the way my dad could annihilate you when he spoke, throwing around words like “idiot,” “retard,” “moron” at the drop of a hat.

One time when we were little and pretending to make soup in the bathroom sink out of his Old Spice, Contac cold capsules, and most of the other contents of the medicine cabinet, I saw my dad at the end of the hallway. When he asked, “What the fuck are you’s doing?” I got hot all over and couldn’t say a word. After Nicole answered, “We are making a soup,” he spanked her. For some reason I always laughed when my sister got hit. I’m sure it was a defense against more complicated emotions. Or I was just evil as a kid and liked her getting hit.

“Idiots,” he said. “Get into your room.”

He was only raising us the way he had been raised, but anytime he was around, I was tense—even when he was trying to be kind. For example, one time when I came to the dinner table, I found a paper bag on my chair, so I didn’t sit down.

“What are you going to do, stand there?” he asked, looking at me.

“What’s the right answer?

I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so I didn’t say anything.

“Pick up the bag, idiot,” my dad said.

Thinking this was some kind of a trick, I nervously picked up the bag and opened it. Inside was a doll. By the time I realized what it was, however, I was so wound up that I had started to cry.

“What’s with you?” Dad started yelling. “Someone tries to give you a gift and you’re crying?”

I couldn’t catch my breath to explain.

I remember once when I carelessly shoved a box of cookies into the kitchen cabinet. My dad walked by, saw what I was doing, and said, “What kind of fucking animal puts cookies back this way?!” He grabbed the box and threw the cookies across the room.

Editorial Reviews

An aggressively honest memoir . . . Troublemaker is the most raw and revealing Scientology memoir to date.”—Entertainment Weekly “Leah’s story is a juicy, inside-Hollywood read, but it’s more than that. It’s a moving story about the value of questioning authority and how one woman survived a profound crisis of faith.”—People “Remini [offers] up some juicy tidbits from her decades in the church.”—Newsweek

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

You will be shocked page and page again. Scientology needs to be investigated by all goverment agencies and exposed for the tax fraud, abusive, cult that it is.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I knew I always liked Leah Remini, but after this book, I love her! I can't imagine the life she lived, evening after reading about it. I admire her courage for speaking up and for being a "troublemaker"! I am a Christian...not perfect, not better than anyone, but someone who understands the devotion to one's faith. For Leah to be able to see that she had on "blinders" and be able to rise above, it's absolutely amazing! Troublemaker is so complex, beautifully written, and really makes you applaud the courage it took for one lone woman to fight the wrong and seek the path that was right for her and her family. Well done, Leah!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Leah tells her experiences with such honesty....I believe every word. These people are freaks and it is a cult powered by greed and money!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

This book was an awesome read. I give her credit for standing up for who she really is. A great lady.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Authentic and charming. Great read

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

A well written and interestingbook. So glad Leah is free from that horrid institution. I always loved her from her King of Queens show.
Tom C and Katie Holmes seem even more vapid than I thought before, sad, at least she got out.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Scientology is a cult. Plain & simple.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Great book. Was like sitting at the kitchen table talking with a girlfriend. Leah Remini was honest and raw. I laughed, I oohed and ah'd and cried. Amazing life experience, not many people can be brave to leave what they know and be brave to speak about it. Kuddos.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Direct and strong journey to adulthood. A memoir about being consumed by the evils of religion, or in her case a cult. I believe her story despite a few flights of dramatic license. I have been exposed to others who have left Scientology and Leah's story synchs well. Not great literature, but good reading. I'd love to spend a few hours with her just for the Brooklyn.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Very Happy that her and family are away from that cult.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I loved this book...finished it in 2 days.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I've always liked Leah Remini and still watch The King of Queens re-runs. She's a say what you mean, mean what you say kind of gal. A very bad fit for a "Kooky Kult" like scientology. I'm just so happy for her and her family that they escaped that crazy group that brainwashes their members. I personally think they need to be investigated and, especially, find out what really happened to their leader's wife, Shelly. It's just a really spooky organization.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

How can you not love leah. Here straight forward honesty is admiring. Honestly some parts got a bit boring, but overall loved the book.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Troublemaker is a great read. Once I started reading I could not stop!!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I believe her, good read.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Leah writes with brutal honesty and pulls no punches, but that's not a bad thing. Every word comes straight from the heart, and reading this book felt like she was sitting across from me having a conversation in real life.
For those who have waited for the "inside" scoop about why she left the CoS, you will get it in spades!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Leah Remini delivers a brutally honest look at growing up in a cult, with a touch of her trademark humor. I learned more about Scientology than I already did, and even though there were some things which gave me pause (she talks about being conditioned by the cult, yet refuses to acknowledge Tom Cruise could be similarly brainwashed, a lot of the Cruise stories and opinions seem petty), I thought this was a great look at this mysterious organization from someone in the inside.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Ive just finished read an excerpt from the Book snd HAVE to get it! I love her honesty and for rightness of her life!I can not wait to buy it!!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Easy to read and eye opening.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I wish I could thank Leah Remini for sharing her story and hug her for the inspiration that she provides to continue to work on yourself to make the world better.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

This book was really interesting and informative. Leah is so brave to tell her story of courage and perseverance! Such a beautiful story that kept me laughing and crying and left me inspired :)

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Very brave and honest reveal of the COS

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Fascinating read. She is brave, outspoken and warm-hearted. I loved her voice in this book.

Before his acclaimed relaunches of Superman, Action Comics, Young Justice and Dial H for Hero...before
his triumphant successes with Daredevil, Ultimate Spider-Man, Invincible Iron Man and Jessica Jones...before his groundbreaking original series Powers, Scarlet, Cover and Pearl......Brian Michael Bendis was ...

A “treasure trove” of insider accounts of the movie business from its earliest beginnings to
the present day—“exceedingly savvy . . . astute and entertaining” (Variety). The Grove Book of Hollywood is a richly entertaining anthology of anecdotes and ...

As the filmmaking capital of the world, Hollywood has produced lots of scary movies. Ghosts,
monsters, and mummies from its studios have made unforgettable on-screen appearances. Yet what if this world-famous spot in southern California is itself haunted by ghosts? ...

Macey Greere was the girl who fell in love with her book boyfriend. Now she
is the girl who was dumped on national television. Ever the perpetual list maker, she decides to create and follow a 10-step program inspired by ...

Maggie's first experience on a film set couldn't have gone any worse. One wrong turn
through a closed door sends her dreams to tatters. Now, Trevor McCain, Hollywood's it star had it out for her. Tired of always being pushed ...

A humorous critique of the Hollywood liberals from the New York Times bestselling author of
Obama Zombies.THE BOOK YOU’RE ABOUT TO READ WILL PISS YOU OFF. Are you sick of self-important celebrities preaching against “global warming” yet flying private planes ...

Imelda London was the greatest rising star of her day in the heart of the
golden age of Hollywood but by the end of her brief run she became a virtual unknown. Her reputation for fast living helped overshadow the ...

This book will be helpful to anyone who's ever been fascinated by the magic of
Hollywood, the thrill of performing, and the mystery of how to get the two concepts to cooperate and provide a career. I loved the idea ...